German politicians signal to Syrian asylum seekers: It’s time to go home
The Washington Post (archive.ph)
By Anthony Faiola and Kate Brady
2025-01-31 01:25:37GMT
Expatriate Syrians in Berlin celebrate the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8. (Omer Messinger/Getty Images)
BERLIN — A sharp turn toward a tougher line on migrants is beginning to play out in Germany, with leading politicians calling for mass returns, echoing President Donald Trump’s plan to expel undocumented migrants from the United States.
Ahead of elections next month, what to do with migrants — including the nearly 1 million Syrian refugees living here — has emerged as issue No. 1 for German voters. And on Wednesday, front-runner chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz successfully pushed a parliamentary motion that, while nonbinding, signaled the kind of crackdown he would pursue.
The proposed measures include permanent border controls with all neighboring countries, bans on entry by anyone without valid documents, the detention of migrants who have been ordered to leave Germany, and daily deportations flights, including regular repatriations to Syria.
In a first, the motion passed with Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) relying on votes from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — a growing far-right force long shunned by mainstream parties. The taboo-breaking move prompted a wave of backlash Thursday, including criticism from former chancellor Angela Merkel. An Infratest Dimap poll suggested that a majority of Germans supported the proposed entry ban.
A binding bill scheduled for a vote on Friday would curb the right to family reunification as a means to enter Germany.
The shift in attitudes and policies is striking. A decade ago, heeding a national rallying cry of “We can do it,” Germany opened its doors to Syrians fleeing a deadly civil war. But after the stunning fall of Bashar al-Assad last month, Germany was one of several European countries to put open asylum applications from Syrian nationals on hold. And now, a swath of German society is sounding a new clarion call: It’s time for them to go home.
Politicians advocating for deportations argue that migrants have jeopardized Germany’s security and become costly societal burdens — and that the country would save billions of euros in social welfare payments if most Syrians left.
Critics question whether the proposed measures would be legal. They also argue that the departure of Syrians would be a big setback for a country already crying out for more skilled workers.
Germany is home to the largest Syrian diaspora outside the Middle East. As of December 2023, about 972,000 Syrian nationals were living in Germany, including 712,000 registered as seeking protection, according to the Federal Statistics Office.
Although Syrians make up less than 1 percent of Germany’s workforce, they are overrepresented in critical sectors.
“If Syrian skilled workers left, the entire system wouldn’t collapse,” said Wido Geis-Thöne, a migration expert with the German Economic Institute. “But the last thing Germany needs is a mass exodus of skilled workers.”
Of particular concern is health care. The nearly 6,000 Syrian doctors working in Germany make up the single largest group of foreign practitioners and specialists.
“Whole areas in the health sector would fall away if all the Syrians who work here now were to leave our country,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, of the center-left Social Democrats, said last month.
Yet the need for workers is clashing with the powerful wave of anti-migrant sentiment that has been sweeping much of the Western world. In Germany, that sentiment was further propelled by last month’s deadly attack on a Christmas market (the suspect is a Saudi man with anti-Islam views) and a fatal stabbing at a German park last week (the suspect is Afghan).
Among those who support stepped-up deportations, there is debate about how broad or targeted those efforts should be.
AfD politicians have tended to suggest that Syrians should go back as quickly as possible. As people amassed in German streets to cheer the fall of Assad last month, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel wrote on X: “Anyone in Germany who celebrates ‘free Syria’ evidently no longer has any reason to flee. They should return to Syria immediately.”
One AfD branch in southwestern Germany distributed 30,000 fliers made to look like plane tickets, with the slogan “only remigration can still save Germany” — an act that drew comparison to Nazi-era propaganda offering Jews free one-way tickets to Jerusalem.
Jürgen Braun, the AfD’s human rights spokesman, has argued that almost all Syrians who arrived as refugees should return and that cases in which people obtained a right to remain in the country through family reunification should be reviewed. Their departure, he said, would lift a burden from the German economy, saving “billions of euros” otherwise spent on their behalf.
Braun rejected the idea that Syrians possessed the kind of skills needed in Germany. “These are people who are poorly qualified in almost any form if they work anywhere in Germany,” he said. “It is quite an exception when they are in normal work somewhere. They are mostly on social welfare.”
Germany’s mainstream politicians have been doing verbal contortions to separate the “good” Syrians from those who should be shown the door. Merz said that the “one-third” who “work and are integrated” can stay, “but the two-thirds who do not work, they are overwhelmingly young men. Many of them can go back, and many must go back.”
Experts contest those statistics. According to Germany’s Institute for Employment Research, the overall employment rate for working-age Syrians in Germany — 15 to 64 years of age — is 42 percent. That’s typical, they say, for a population that must learn a new language and jump through bureaucratic hoops to find work. It also reflects that some Syrian women hold traditional roles in their families and choose to remain at home.
But experts note that employment rates for Syrians increase with the length of stay. Syrian asylum seekers who arrived in the large wave in 2015, for instance, have an employment rate of 60 percent — 73 percent for men and 29 percent for women. Among the 101,000 Syrians of working age who have obtained German citizenship, 68 percent are employed.
Experts note, too, that Syrian workers are overrepresented in vital sectors such as health care, transportation and logistics.
A recent report by the German Economic Institute highlighted the special importance of the 80,000 Syrian skilled workers in occupations with acute shortages. There are now almost 2,500 Syrian dentists — in a field where 64 percent of job openings remain unfilled. Some 4,000 Syrians are employed as auto mechanics — a job category in Germany in which 7 out of 10 positions cannot be filled because of a lack of qualified workers.
Fewer workers, experts say, would translate into price increases. It would also lengthen waiting times for everything from fixing cars to securing a doctor’s appointment in some communities.
Syrian doctors have particularly filled positions in parts of rural Germany that are worst affected by shortages. At the Harz Clinic, a medical center in northeastern Germany with 20 specialist divisions, more than 20 percent of the doctors are foreign-born, with Syrians forming the largest single non-German nationality.
“It would be difficult to replace me,” said Amer Kader, a Syrian cardiologist at the clinic. “It’s totally isolated here, an hour away from the two nearest big cities.”
Even in major cities, some communities have become heavily reliant on Syrian medical talent.
Thomas Kunz, 65, sold his ear, nose and throat practice in the Treptow-Köpenick borough of Berlin to a Syrian doctor as part of his retirement planning. Now, the practice is staffed by Kunz, new owner Wajdi Lawand and Rania Kadib Alban, a Syrian doctor in her 30s.
Rania Kadib Alban is an ear, nose and throat specialist in the Treptow-Köpenick borough of Berlin. (Hayley Austin for The Washington Post)
Wait times for non-emergency appointments, Kunz said, are about two weeks — and would stretch to more than a month if the practice were to lose one of its doctors.
Alban said she and her husband, also a Syrian doctor, hoped to stay in Germany. Their two children — ages 2 and 6 — were born here, prefer German food to Syrian, and speak German far better than Arabic.
But she worries that the debate over sending some Syrians home could impact family and friends.
“As doctors, we’re a little safer because the German health-care system needs us,” she said. “But it’s sad for other people. It’s upsetting. If my family and friends aren’t allowed to stay, then I don’t want to either.”
The idea that doctors and other “needed” Syrians should stay while others may be compelled to leave risks alienating people like Mohamad Ghazal, a urologist who arrived in Germany in 2017 through a family reunification program. Within one year, he’d learned German — in part by taking a cooking course. His medical qualifications were fully recognized in 2020. He began working at a Hamburg clinic as a urologist in April 2020.
Mohamad Ghazal is a urologist at the Harburg Asklepios Clinic in Hamburg. (Hayley Austin for The Washington Post)
The night Assad was ousted, Ghazal danced around his apartment. “I wanted to take the next flight to Syria, but there isn’t one. I keep checking my app every day. I hope sanctions will soon be lifted so we can fly there again. I want to know if my house is still there. Where are my books? Where are my clothes?”
While Ghazal retains a desire to stay in Germany and continue his professional development, he said he also feels a responsibility to help rebuild Syria’s health-care system. He plans to adjust his German labor contract to allow him to work in Syria for several months a year, through a project with other Syrian doctors in Germany.
“I am Syrian, and I won’t allow [Germany] to say, ‘We allow the doctors here. But all those [other Syrians] who need help, we’ll deport them,’” Ghazal said.
The Washington Post (archive.ph)
By Anthony Faiola and Kate Brady
2025-01-31 01:25:37GMT
Expatriate Syrians in Berlin celebrate the fall of the Assad regime on Dec. 8. (Omer Messinger/Getty Images)
BERLIN — A sharp turn toward a tougher line on migrants is beginning to play out in Germany, with leading politicians calling for mass returns, echoing President Donald Trump’s plan to expel undocumented migrants from the United States.
Ahead of elections next month, what to do with migrants — including the nearly 1 million Syrian refugees living here — has emerged as issue No. 1 for German voters. And on Wednesday, front-runner chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz successfully pushed a parliamentary motion that, while nonbinding, signaled the kind of crackdown he would pursue.
The proposed measures include permanent border controls with all neighboring countries, bans on entry by anyone without valid documents, the detention of migrants who have been ordered to leave Germany, and daily deportations flights, including regular repatriations to Syria.
In a first, the motion passed with Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) relying on votes from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — a growing far-right force long shunned by mainstream parties. The taboo-breaking move prompted a wave of backlash Thursday, including criticism from former chancellor Angela Merkel. An Infratest Dimap poll suggested that a majority of Germans supported the proposed entry ban.
A binding bill scheduled for a vote on Friday would curb the right to family reunification as a means to enter Germany.
The shift in attitudes and policies is striking. A decade ago, heeding a national rallying cry of “We can do it,” Germany opened its doors to Syrians fleeing a deadly civil war. But after the stunning fall of Bashar al-Assad last month, Germany was one of several European countries to put open asylum applications from Syrian nationals on hold. And now, a swath of German society is sounding a new clarion call: It’s time for them to go home.
Politicians advocating for deportations argue that migrants have jeopardized Germany’s security and become costly societal burdens — and that the country would save billions of euros in social welfare payments if most Syrians left.
Critics question whether the proposed measures would be legal. They also argue that the departure of Syrians would be a big setback for a country already crying out for more skilled workers.
Germany is home to the largest Syrian diaspora outside the Middle East. As of December 2023, about 972,000 Syrian nationals were living in Germany, including 712,000 registered as seeking protection, according to the Federal Statistics Office.
Although Syrians make up less than 1 percent of Germany’s workforce, they are overrepresented in critical sectors.
“If Syrian skilled workers left, the entire system wouldn’t collapse,” said Wido Geis-Thöne, a migration expert with the German Economic Institute. “But the last thing Germany needs is a mass exodus of skilled workers.”
Of particular concern is health care. The nearly 6,000 Syrian doctors working in Germany make up the single largest group of foreign practitioners and specialists.
“Whole areas in the health sector would fall away if all the Syrians who work here now were to leave our country,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, of the center-left Social Democrats, said last month.
Yet the need for workers is clashing with the powerful wave of anti-migrant sentiment that has been sweeping much of the Western world. In Germany, that sentiment was further propelled by last month’s deadly attack on a Christmas market (the suspect is a Saudi man with anti-Islam views) and a fatal stabbing at a German park last week (the suspect is Afghan).
Among those who support stepped-up deportations, there is debate about how broad or targeted those efforts should be.
AfD politicians have tended to suggest that Syrians should go back as quickly as possible. As people amassed in German streets to cheer the fall of Assad last month, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel wrote on X: “Anyone in Germany who celebrates ‘free Syria’ evidently no longer has any reason to flee. They should return to Syria immediately.”
One AfD branch in southwestern Germany distributed 30,000 fliers made to look like plane tickets, with the slogan “only remigration can still save Germany” — an act that drew comparison to Nazi-era propaganda offering Jews free one-way tickets to Jerusalem.
Jürgen Braun, the AfD’s human rights spokesman, has argued that almost all Syrians who arrived as refugees should return and that cases in which people obtained a right to remain in the country through family reunification should be reviewed. Their departure, he said, would lift a burden from the German economy, saving “billions of euros” otherwise spent on their behalf.
Braun rejected the idea that Syrians possessed the kind of skills needed in Germany. “These are people who are poorly qualified in almost any form if they work anywhere in Germany,” he said. “It is quite an exception when they are in normal work somewhere. They are mostly on social welfare.”
Germany’s mainstream politicians have been doing verbal contortions to separate the “good” Syrians from those who should be shown the door. Merz said that the “one-third” who “work and are integrated” can stay, “but the two-thirds who do not work, they are overwhelmingly young men. Many of them can go back, and many must go back.”
Experts contest those statistics. According to Germany’s Institute for Employment Research, the overall employment rate for working-age Syrians in Germany — 15 to 64 years of age — is 42 percent. That’s typical, they say, for a population that must learn a new language and jump through bureaucratic hoops to find work. It also reflects that some Syrian women hold traditional roles in their families and choose to remain at home.
But experts note that employment rates for Syrians increase with the length of stay. Syrian asylum seekers who arrived in the large wave in 2015, for instance, have an employment rate of 60 percent — 73 percent for men and 29 percent for women. Among the 101,000 Syrians of working age who have obtained German citizenship, 68 percent are employed.
Experts note, too, that Syrian workers are overrepresented in vital sectors such as health care, transportation and logistics.
A recent report by the German Economic Institute highlighted the special importance of the 80,000 Syrian skilled workers in occupations with acute shortages. There are now almost 2,500 Syrian dentists — in a field where 64 percent of job openings remain unfilled. Some 4,000 Syrians are employed as auto mechanics — a job category in Germany in which 7 out of 10 positions cannot be filled because of a lack of qualified workers.
Fewer workers, experts say, would translate into price increases. It would also lengthen waiting times for everything from fixing cars to securing a doctor’s appointment in some communities.
Syrian doctors have particularly filled positions in parts of rural Germany that are worst affected by shortages. At the Harz Clinic, a medical center in northeastern Germany with 20 specialist divisions, more than 20 percent of the doctors are foreign-born, with Syrians forming the largest single non-German nationality.
“It would be difficult to replace me,” said Amer Kader, a Syrian cardiologist at the clinic. “It’s totally isolated here, an hour away from the two nearest big cities.”
Even in major cities, some communities have become heavily reliant on Syrian medical talent.
Thomas Kunz, 65, sold his ear, nose and throat practice in the Treptow-Köpenick borough of Berlin to a Syrian doctor as part of his retirement planning. Now, the practice is staffed by Kunz, new owner Wajdi Lawand and Rania Kadib Alban, a Syrian doctor in her 30s.
Rania Kadib Alban is an ear, nose and throat specialist in the Treptow-Köpenick borough of Berlin. (Hayley Austin for The Washington Post)
Wait times for non-emergency appointments, Kunz said, are about two weeks — and would stretch to more than a month if the practice were to lose one of its doctors.
Alban said she and her husband, also a Syrian doctor, hoped to stay in Germany. Their two children — ages 2 and 6 — were born here, prefer German food to Syrian, and speak German far better than Arabic.
But she worries that the debate over sending some Syrians home could impact family and friends.
“As doctors, we’re a little safer because the German health-care system needs us,” she said. “But it’s sad for other people. It’s upsetting. If my family and friends aren’t allowed to stay, then I don’t want to either.”
The idea that doctors and other “needed” Syrians should stay while others may be compelled to leave risks alienating people like Mohamad Ghazal, a urologist who arrived in Germany in 2017 through a family reunification program. Within one year, he’d learned German — in part by taking a cooking course. His medical qualifications were fully recognized in 2020. He began working at a Hamburg clinic as a urologist in April 2020.
Mohamad Ghazal is a urologist at the Harburg Asklepios Clinic in Hamburg. (Hayley Austin for The Washington Post)
The night Assad was ousted, Ghazal danced around his apartment. “I wanted to take the next flight to Syria, but there isn’t one. I keep checking my app every day. I hope sanctions will soon be lifted so we can fly there again. I want to know if my house is still there. Where are my books? Where are my clothes?”
While Ghazal retains a desire to stay in Germany and continue his professional development, he said he also feels a responsibility to help rebuild Syria’s health-care system. He plans to adjust his German labor contract to allow him to work in Syria for several months a year, through a project with other Syrian doctors in Germany.
“I am Syrian, and I won’t allow [Germany] to say, ‘We allow the doctors here. But all those [other Syrians] who need help, we’ll deport them,’” Ghazal said.
